BRotD Entry 0268 - The Looming Social Upheaval from AI

Best Reading of the Day

The article frames the discussion as a lack of preparedness by politicians for the coming AI revolution, that some refer to as the third industrial revolution.

The U.S. is a democracy with a system of laws for governing. Free market people will say it is as it should be. Keep politicos and their regulations out.

What will come of it?

Here is the complete article:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html

Here are a few snippets from the piece, that is a lengthy interview with economist Glenn Hubbard.

Glenn Hubbard is worried the United States isn’t ready to accept the disruptions that come along with [the coming AI revolution] 

...

Over the past three or four decades, technological change and some globalization has caused a slow-mo disruption of the job market and communities around the country. Now look at AI, we’re going to have that same disruption except it’s going to be much faster. We’re talking about five years, not 30.

...

Social support for our system is unraveling and it’s been unraveling for a while. There are many communities and many groups of individuals who don’t really feel like contemporary capitalism is serving them well. And the longer we let that go, we’re really running the risk of killing the golden goose.

That last part really struck me.

We have literally seen the populace of the U.S. rise up with pitchforks and torches to overthrow our current system (January 6 Capital Riots). Income inequality and wealth disparity, inherent in capitalism, have been growing rapidly for decades and is well-known to be a source to destabilize a society. 

When will the people of the U.S. wake up? The younger generation is already moving rapidly anti-capitalist and pro-socialism because of where we are. A sea-change is coming. I see tumultuous times ahead.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD Entry 0267 - Major League Baseball and AI

Best Reading of the Day

 Data is the currency of sports in the modern era. 

We have seen the major leagues transformed over the last two decades--moneyball in baseball--and the effort is ongoing and continuous.

The latest is AI-driven analysis of extreme video footage of baseball players: both pitchers and hitters.

This story is eye-opening:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/10/op-moneyballai/

Here is a snippet from the piece.

Boddy [the owner of the data company] and his engineering team now rely on AI to blend dozens of data streams to create customized coaching regimens. I cannot emphasize enough how little this is like your weekly personal training session. Video analysis breaks down individual muscles and movements by the inch. Hardware (bats and balls) is equipped with software (sensors) that tracks every baseball action and renders them into equations that measure force and torque. Like all data-gobbling AI software, the process gets smarter as it goes; Driveline has collected enough historical performance data that it can correlate five non-baseball related physical tests into dead solid predictions of fastball velocity and bat speed.

Even in its infancy, Driveline helped Bauer become one of baseball’s best pitchers. 

The most shocking part of the story? This is coming for all of our jobs yet almost none of us will be able to afford to protect our data from our employers. The conclusion of this piece is telling:

“I have friends who are lawyers and prop traders, and it’s shocking to me how far ahead sports is when it comes to these technologies,” says Boddy. “A lot of them don’t see what’s coming.” 

Got your attention yet?

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD Entry 0266 - AI Deepfake Scam for Twenty Five Million Dollars

 Best Reading of the Day

Oh boy.

A sophisticated phishing scam hit a Hong Kong company - as yet undisclosed - and convinced an employee to move HK$200 Million, or about $25 USD Million, to a variety of banks.

Deep fake technology, including accurate voices, on a video conference call simulated the Chief Financial Officer and a number of other employees and convinced the real life employee to make the transfer.

Phew!

The days of shootouts in banks are way behind us.

Here's the story:

arstechnica.com -first-of-its-kind-ai-heist/

And here is a snippet from that piece:

The scam was initially uncovered following a phishing attempt, when an employee in the finance department of the company's Hong Kong branch received what seemed to be a phishing message, purportedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer, instructing them to execute a secret transaction. 

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Will AI Save the World?

 Technological advances are driven by a few things such as need.

In Product Management we talk about Jobs, Pains and Gains.

Someone has some kind of "job" they want done and will consider hiring a solution to that job such as a bagel for breakfast.

Someone has a "pain" of some kind and a solution to that pain is valuable. Such as an unstable form of high explosive like nitroglycerin causing death and uncertainty, eventually replaced by TNT, a stable high explosive.  Of course, this led to artillery shells and the massive loss of life in The Great War (WWI).

Someone has a "gain" they wish to realize such as revenue and will consider your solution to help them.

Artificial Intelligence advances are being driven by these and other reasons such as intellectual curiosity, scientific curiosity, etc. Will all of AI be of benefit to humankind?  Will all of it be to the detriment of human kind?  This little writeup, by a capital management firm (hmm, does this writer perhaps have motivations for writing something like this?) says AI will save the world. 

Will it?

You decide?

Here is the article:

/ai-will-save-the-world/

And here is a blurb from that piece:

What AI offers us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence – and many others, from the creation of new medicines to ways to solve climate change to technologies to reach the stars – much, much better from here.
AI augmentation of human intelligence has already started – AI is already around us in the form of computer control systems of many kinds, is now rapidly escalating with AI Large Language Models like ChatGPT, and will accelerate very quickly from here – if we let it.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Decline of Cable TV

 Quick question: do you have a cable TV subscription?

If so, you are one of a rapidly declining set of customers.

I cut the cord (a term for moving to internet-only, no cable TV) many years ago when my provider sent me a notice my monthly bill would be increasing by 39%  with no corresponding change in service.

That trend is accelerating. Cable TV is nearing end of life.

Here is a recent piece on that:

cord-cutting-all-time-high

Here is a snippet from that piece:

As streaming video continues its ascendancy, cable, satellite and internet TV providers in the U.S. turned in their worst subscriber losses to date in the first quarter of 2023 — collectively shedding 2.3 million customers in the period, according to analyst estimates.

Best Regards,

J.W. Gant

PS I watched a portion of the Celtics game 7 loss to the Heat last night at a friend's who has YouTube TV. Not bad. We "tuned in" TNT to watch it. Easy. I have a digital antenna at home for basic TV viewing and just skip events that aren't on the big channels.

PPS Thank you to arstechnica.com for pointing me to this story.

The Danger of General Artificial Intelligence

 The sci-fi stories are becoming reality, becoming whispers at water coolers, becoming the nightmares of researchers at AI labs, becoming a voice in the halls of Congress, becoming a shout, and becoming a clarion call.

AI could kill us all.

That is the conclusion of the top minds in Artificial Intelligence.  Even the skeptics generally say it only "might" kill us all.

Might?

Time to hit the pause button?

Here is a Time article on the subject:

We Are Not Doing Enough to Stop General AI

Here is a snippet from that piece:

We are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we actually do this, we are all going to die.

Here is a recent 

AI Poses an Extinction Risk

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Leaders from OpenAI, Google Deepmind, Anthropic and other A.I. labs warn that future systems could be as deadly as pandemics and nuclear weapons.

Wow.

Then I think of The Great Filter that I wrote about in this blog and I wonder if we are really on this planet, if our purpose in life, is to create an intelligence greater than ours.  And I wonder, what happens after that?

Happy Tuesday. :-)

Best Regards,

J.W. Gant

Ills of Social Media Tech

Watch any teenager today (and younger) and you'll see an appendage with a phone and a human attached to it.

Tik Tok

SnapChat

Yes, Instagram and maybe still a little Facebook.

The Surgeon General of the United States just wrote a warning about the issues with social media and we should all be paying attention, especially if you are the parent of a child navigating these new technologies.

Here is a pretty great story about a young woman who quit social media for a year, her conclusions, and what she plans to do next:

Young Woman Quits Social Media

Here is a blurb from that:

Social media became my form of expression. I tried to authentically capture my life on my profiles, and my identity was broadcast online for hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people to see.

Things quickly went downhill when likes and comments became my validation.

Take a day to disconnect.  To unplug. You will thank me.

Now please excuse me while I turn off my laptop and go for a run outside in the sunshine north of Boston.

Best Regards,

J.W. Gant